This invention relates to personal portable wireless terminals (hereinafter, referred to as portable terminals) and radio communication systems and particularly to a portable terminal having functions of telephone, scheduling manager and address book manager or a plurality of receiving modes and to a radio communication system using this portable terminal.
A small size portable computer (or electric note book), having the function of scheduling manager, is known as an electronic scheduler and disclosed in, for example, JP-A-143171/1987. This electronic scheduler has the function that the private schedules inputted by its owner, operator or user are stored as data and that later, a key work such as date or matter (event) is used to search the corresponding data of the schedules, then the data is displayed. There is another small size portable computer (electric note book) which has, in addition to the schedule managing function mentioned above, the function that desired data such as telephone numbers, an address book and so on are previously stored and are, if necessary, read by use of various kinds of key words and displayed. It has a pocket size shape and thus it is becoming a necessary article for the businessmen in place of the usual note book.
The indoor or limited area radio telephone system to which the conventional cordless telephone has developed is described in the paper, No. 438, page 2-256 (1986) of the 1986-all-Japan meeting of the Institute of Electronics and Communication Engineers of Japan, section of communication. This system solved the problem that cordless telephones are limited only to the use in a narrow range because they are connected to a particular base station, or it has the feature that the cordless telephones can be connected to unspecified base stations under the control of PBX (private branch exchange) so that the user can call a telephone at any place within the yard. If each person always carries his own small size wireless telephone of this type, each person at a given place can freely call other persons or can be freely called by other persons. Thus, it is possible to call any person by use of a particular wire telephone installed at a particular place and directly call a particular person by use of a wireless telephone.
The conventional small size portable computer (or electric note book) mentioned above, however, stores only private schedules or the like, and thus has a limited advantage.
We will now consider, for example, the function of a scheduler. When we try to make previous arrangements or call a conference, we first check the schedules of persons who are to attend, select the dates on which the attendants are free, and then fix appointments with the attendants, before making the schedule for the meeting. In addition, we send invitation notes in which the contents of the schedule are written, to the persons to attend, and record the contents of the schedule on our note or the like. Thus, the conventional electric note book which stores only the private schedules is not useful when we make a schedule for a conference. That is, we must be helped by another in collecting the schedules of the persons to attend, adjusting and fixing the date of the conference and sending the invitation note to the respective attendants, which operations take much time and labor. In other words, the conventional electric note book has the function of storing the result of having fixed a schedule, or the function of the usual note book, and does not utilize the data stored in the electric note books of other persons'.
We will next consider the memo function. The telephone numbers, an address book and so on must be inputted by manually, which operation is troublesome.
Moreover, precious data stored with much labor may be lost by erroneous operation (for example, resetting) of the electric note book. The loss of such information may bring the businessman into a serious situation.
Also, in the indoor radio telephone system mentioned above, when an owner of a radio telephone is directly called by another radio telephone, calling and being called occur at arbitrary places within the yard, for example, at a place where a meeting is being conducted, under which situation the ringing from the telephone may disturb the meeting. In this case, most telephone calls will probably need no emergency, and thus a speech or voice message (for example, automatic answering telephone) will satisfy such communication as the telephone call. The speech or voice communication may be unnecessary depending on the contents, but may often be replaced by a memo in which case the electric mail or the like may be used. In addition to the present speech communication accompanied with ringing, this nonringing communication can be introduced to enable the choise of a communication mode matched with time, place and situation, thus reducing useless calls.
A method of switching among the communication modes and control of the forbidden level depending on the contents of a meeting is necessary. At each time of movement to a certain place, these must be changed by key input with match labor and time taken, which fact may cause the user to forget the switching of communication modes.